In recent months a growing number of cloud platform providers have been going on the offensive,
talking up ‘Amazon-busting’
features and painting the cloud giant as a channel unfriendly organisation.

While AWS does not, according to UK and Ireland director Iain Gavin, see itself as a good fit
for those who just want to resell a cloud platform, born-in-the-cloud integrators and those
prepared to invest and evolve into the cloud to target enterprise customers could benefit from
exploring a relationship with the firm.

It enhanced its existing channel network last
year, adding more technical partner support capabilities, market
development funds and lead generation, and it is now seeking to widen the number of partners it
does business with.

Speaking to MicroScope, Gavin said it was relying on the channel more and more to bring
potential customers to AWS’ door thanks to the “credibility, value and track record” already
established by the channel with enterprise client bases.

Pontus Noren, director and co-founder at AWS partner CloudReach, said that major vendors were “struggling to
find their way” in the face of rapidly evolving procurement models and cloud growth, and said that
this was having a knock-on effect on partners and would potentially drive
more towards AWS.

“But it is not easy for partners to change track either. It’s not as simple as just ditching HP,
for example because selling AWS is very different in terms of processes,” he said. “It will be
interesting to see how it plays out.”

Neil Miles, managing director at KCOM Group-owned smart421, whose business made the transition over to Amazon
three years ago said prospective AWS partners would need to “whole-heartedly commit to a different
model,” that required a different way of thinking across the board.

“We’re very much about value-added solutions and we identified AWS as a market leader in terms
of cloud services,” said Miles. “For us it’s about creating value for our clients – at our heart
we’re a professional services business and we help customers adopt best-of-breed solutions. A
solution built upon the AWS platform creates a lot of value.”

Noren added: “The value for us is transparency. Because the relationship has full support
from and access to the capabilities of AWS it presents real value.”

This week, IndependenceIT unveiled the 4.0 version of Cloud Workspace Suite, which features a number of enhancements; Knowledge Vault launched a partner program for its cloud-based analytics-as-a-service platform; and more.

Of all the managed services types that solution providers can potentially offer, managed communications has proven to be among the knottiest. Learn about the difficulties involved in delivering them and evaluating prospective partnerships.

Value-added resellers and service providers interested in reselling Aruba networking hardware and software can learn the benefits of becoming an Aruba Networks partner with this standardized checklist. Compare Aruba's reseller partner program with other vendors' offering similar products.